Introducing the “onezone app” – Bringing Cool Places to Everyone

appzone

onezone, a new curated discovery app making it easier for people looking for cool places to eat and drink in London, is launching this month. It’s mission is to curate the world to ensure everyone can find cool places easily, a solution usually only available to those who can afford an exclusive concierge.

The app comes at just the right time for London’s hospitality industry. One of the hardest hit sectors by the coronavirus pandemic, hospitality is looking to begin reopening on April 12th and confidence is high for dining out in 2021, with more than one-third of Britons planning to go for a meal in a restaurant as soon as they are allowed. 

Curation is at the core of onezone. The app is dedicated to quality and is pioneering a new standard of trust by carefully selecting venues to showcase in each city, starting with London. Following a soft launch and beta testing last year, onezone secured 20,000 users and has become synonymous with great food, cool vibes and top service – the key to being ‘onezone approved’.

 

onezone – the highlights

  • +30,000 users, +2000% growth in two weeks since relaunch
  • +20,000 bookings made in 2 weeks to support london restaurants in April and May 2021
  • +4000 places viewed every day

 

Paving the way for how future generations will find cool places to eat and drink in cities around the world, onezone combines search and discovery with booking and sharing, to make sure you have everything you need, all in one zone. Users can scroll through the homepage for new openings, search by areas within a city or filter by cuisine/occasion using the lists or tags feature. When out, users have the ‘near me’ map to discover cool places around them, and while browsing, they can tick off where they’ve been and save favourites or places they want to “go try” straight to their profile. 

They can also follow their friends and check out their profiles to see where they have been or to book somewhere they both want to “go try” together next. onezone-approved places have their own profile that allows users to see unique photos, check the menu, book a table, DM with friends and get an Uber or directions straight there.

The onezone vision of curated discovery has attracted the attention of investors including Rupert Hambro (Hambro Perks), Tom Fleming (Venrex) and James Vincent (FNDR) as well as a fast-growing community of early adopters.  Prior to lockdown, early onezone adopters opened the app up to seven times a day, because it made finding a cool place to eat out so much easier. 

 

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onezone app

 

 

onezone is the vision of 28 year-old CEO and founder Natasha Zone, who started the business in early 2018, after ten years in hospitality and concierge. As the go-to person for where to eat and drink in London for her friends and family, Zone realised that finding cool places is tough, and relying on friends or trawling through online user generated reviews is time consuming and unreliable and knew there could be a better way.

 

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Inset: onezone founder, Natasha Zone

 

 

“Concierges such as AMEX Centurion and Quintessentially offer a high quality, personalised recommendation service but are restricted to those with a certain level of wealth,” commented Zone. “When I examined search and discovery in detail, there was no curated, digital marketplace making it easy for everyone to find cool places to go to. Instagram has 600 million #foodporn posts but existing platforms, such as Tripadvisor, Opentable and TimeOut, that should be capturing the GenY and GenZ consumer, are outdated and leave you with information overload. Our vision is to curate the world for everyone, giving future generations the ability to discover what’s cool in any city, and book and share easily, all in one app.”

During lockdown, Clerkenwell Boy, a multi award-winning author, respected food influencer (278k+ followers on Instagram) and restaurant consultant, spent time pulling together an extensive, constantly updated list of openings and closures to keep London’s diners informed of dining options, before discovering and investing in onezone. 

 

 

“I am extremely excited to be working with onezone,” commented Clerkwenwell Boy, “I strongly believe in supporting the best restaurants, bars and pubs, including local and independent food vendors, as well as being able to connect them to a wide audience of diners who are keen to discover the places across London offering incredible food, great service and good vibes. I get hundreds of messages asking for recommendations of where to eat out – it can be hard to narrow down to the best of the best. The onezone app does it all for you, and much more!“

The potential for the global smart hospitality market is huge: forecast to grow at a rate of 21.63% CAGR from 2020 to 2027, rising from a value of  $11.21 billion in 2019 to $52.88 billion in 2027.  Through its beta app, onezone generated more than 300,000 monthly screen views, 5,000 bookings and experienced 60% month-on-month growth from downloads by GenY’s and Z’s. By the end of 2021, onezone will have added new UK and European cities to the app, including Manchester, Amsterdam and Paris, and the business is on track for 50,000+ new users this summer. 

In the near future, users can expect further development of the app’s personalisation and social features, including a sophisticated recommendations algorithm and new ways for onezone approved venues to talk directly to their customers. With a new app launch planned as soon as lockdown ends, and a large seed round coming up, onezone is ready to deliver its vision of bringing curated discovery to the world – land in any city and know exactly where to eat and drink. 

onezone can be downloaded on iOS and via https://www.onezone.app/. It is currently free to use.